Authenticity is seductive; we embrace it because it makes us feel exclusive. Hating Bourbon Street has valuable social currency, and it’s an easy step toward assuming co-ownership of “real” New Orleans culture. But declaring something to be inauthentic positions the critic in the dubious position of arbitrating reality. […] Worse, inauthenticity rests on the troubling supposition that not all human beings or human endeavors contribute equally to this thing we call culture.
Eyes that have seen a lot of stuff in Downtown Atlanta
Eyes that have seen a lot of stuff in Downtown Atlanta. From the Eiseman Building to the Five Points MARTA station.
Three Days of the Condor
Three Days of the Condor. Dang, this movie is so fun. There aren’t many spy films with such appeal to your daydream fantasy fulfillment side, that seem almost within reach. The protagonist here? Just a dork with a day job that mainly involves reading about espionage - news, novels, magazines - and reporting on new ideas. BUT then he becomes the object of various gun-related machinations, and now he’s got to think his way out. There’s some strange sexual politics and some really good writing and some refreshing characterization. Redford and Dunaway are great. It took me a second to figure out why Max von Sydow looked familiar. Worth checking out.
Frank Chimero – This One's for Me
In light of all our focus on “progress,” it’s easy to forget that you can turn around from traveling in a wrong direction, and return to the place where things last felt right—whether that’s for something as trivial as what I’m trying to do with my goofy website, or as monumental as restructuring your identity, ambition, and emotional furnishings to match the last time you felt like yourself. You can go back. Sometimes that’s progress.
I get that same queasy, nervous, thrilling feeling every time I go to work
“I get that same queasy, nervous, thrilling feeling every time I go to work. That’s never worn off since I was 12 years-old with my dad’s 8-millimeter movie camera. The thrill hasn’t changed at all. In fact, as I’ve gotten older, it’s actually increased, because now I appreciate the collaboration. When I was a kid, there was no collaboration, it’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself. My job was constantly to keep a movie family going.”
NBA Rebuilding the Highlight Factory - ESPN
Atlanta is a sports town, just not one that resembles other major league cities. To understand Atlanta’s relationship with the Hawks, it’s necessary to understand that the common cultural heritage of the metropolitan area tends toward living in the suburbs and the tribalism of college football. To believe Atlanta is not a good sports town, it’s necessary to believe college football is not a sport.
Ran
Ran. Very satisfying. I still have a lot of Kurosawa left to see. Previously: Throne of Blood; Rashomon.
Timmy with a major league slurve
Concealing what is shameful to you will never lead to anything of value
Concealing what is shameful to you will never lead to anything of value.
Karl Ove Knausgård. Oh, Karl Ove. He would say that. (My Struggle is good. Book 2 is still a few months away.)
Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience
We often have it stuck in our heads that science communicators have only failed to speak to the religious right. But while issues of science-and-society are always tied up, in some ways, with politics, they’re not bound to any particular part of the spectrum.
Million Dollar Baby
Million Dollar Baby. I’ve had this near the top of my Eastwood rankings for a while, but I started to wonder if I was due for a reevaluation. It’s good, but I think memory rounded off some of the rough edges. Rankings are getting a bit absurd, but I think you can safely say that numbers 1-4 are in the must-see tier, 5-8 are worthwhile, 9-11 you can safely skip, while only 12 is what I’d call straight-up bad.
Why Hollywood will never look the same again on film
In a sense, every night exterior LA-shot film previous to this change is rendered a sort of anthropological artifact, an historical document of obsolete urban infrastructure.
Now I want to give Collateral another shot.
The Lego Movie
The Lego Movie. I had heard that this was better than you’d think, but it was still so wildly beyond my expectations. (My first reaction might still hold. I’ll need to mull it over a it more.) The story is pretty straightforward, but they build in a lot of good meta-movie/genre tropes and the sense of humor was right up my alley (both the wit and the dumb gags). And it’s gorgeous. The verrrrry very end doesn’t quite work for me, but geez. What a treat.
Life is a game. This is your strategy guide
The Risks Worth Taking - Austin Kleon
The Risks Worth Taking - Austin Kleon.
Believe me, when I quit my day job almost two years ago, it was not an act of bravery, and if it was a risk, it was an extremely calculated one.
Skyfall
Skyfall. Uhhh… I fell asleep. There’s some good location porn though. Word on the street is Quantum of Solace is the worst one? Haven’t seen it, but I’m skeptical. I guess Bond in general just isn’t my thing. Casino Royale was pretty good, though.
The Bling Ring
The Bling Ring. It’s not amazing (characterization is pretty weak (but it doesn’t seem to be trying (but maybe it would help?))), but it does have an addictive energy to it. There’s one burglary that’s caught in a one-take long shot that’s just perfect. I need to catch up on Sofia Coppola’s other stuff. The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation are pretty brilliant.
2013 Double Feature: Her / Don Jon / The Dissolve
2013 Double Feature: Her / Don Jon / The Dissolve.
Samantha and Barbara are idealized, objectified versions of women based on the main characters’ tastes. In Don Jon, Gordon-Levitt’s Jon repeatedly calls Barbara the most perfect thing—note the “thing”—he’s ever seen, an evaluation based primarily on her physical resemblance to the women in the pornography he spends hours watching each day. In Her, Samantha is literally the ideal woman for Joaquin Phoenix’s sad-sack Theodore Twombly, an intuitive piece of technology that adapts to him, without him even realizing she’s doing it. She’s everything he wants, without him having to say, or even understand, what he wants.
Armageddon
Armageddon. Ebert summarized it correctly (“Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer.”), but I enjoyed it more than he did. Some terrible writing and comedy hasn’t aged well, but the melodrama and spectacle holds up. I’d totally forgotten about the hyper-idealized middle-America nostalgia in there.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: The End of Quitting
He knew the habit wasn’t worth it. The inevitable consequences had long resonated, I’m sure. But the culture that says that such remembering, taken one day at a time, is the key to recovery is the culture that drives so many — even those who have sought help in the past — to die in the shadows. It’s just too embarrassing to admit you did it anyway. Again.
There are limits to empathy. Every addict lives in fear of reaching them.